Comments on: The Plan? Just fire the teachers and start overhttp://www.ibabuzz.com/education/2009/05/13/the-plan-just-fire-the-teachers-and-start-over/
Katy Murphy's blog on Oakland schoolsTue, 02 Dec 2014 18:10:00 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1By: Joehttp://www.ibabuzz.com/education/2009/05/13/the-plan-just-fire-the-teachers-and-start-over/comment-page-1/#comment-20702
JoeWed, 20 May 2009 21:43:49 +0000http://www.ibabuzz.com/education/?p=4894#comment-20702“I am not a fan of public school teachers. The current bunch don’t impress me like the private school teachers do”.

Little do you know the only differences between the two are:

1. education and or degree requirements are no different.(as a matter of fact many teachers I know have been both)the kids and the parents are different, private school parents and kids have a degree of seriousness that is lacking publicly.

2. Private schools will only accept kids who are willing to learn and in fact hold the parents to that. Public schools have to try and educate everyone(even the disinterested).

I am very impressed with the new crop of teachers, post NCLB. They are definately highly qualified.

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JoeWed, 20 May 2009 21:16:17 +0000http://www.ibabuzz.com/education/?p=4894#comment-20701Kids are a reflection of their parents, they will live what they learn at home. I will admit that there are teachers(failures in my book) who shouldn’t be in the classroom though(they are the minority though). There are rotten doctors too so I guess there isn’t much you can do. Parents are primary role models(I have kids myself)and should impress upon their kids the value of respect,discipline and hard work. Fooling around during class time hurts everyone, and denies those kids that do want to learn the opportunity to do so.
]]>By: Joehttp://www.ibabuzz.com/education/2009/05/13/the-plan-just-fire-the-teachers-and-start-over/comment-page-1/#comment-20700
JoeWed, 20 May 2009 21:02:36 +0000http://www.ibabuzz.com/education/?p=4894#comment-20700“If they are poor students, it is because they have been put through a poor system”.

Not exactly, go to any school you choose and look at the test results by demographics and racial breakdown(Asian student do well no matter what same school better performance) the difference is that those kids have been instilled(by their parents to respect their teachers and value education) these kids have great study habits and are attentive hard workers, the rest takes care of itself. Our American kids are far too worried about video games, music and hanging out. Our country has reaped what our culture has sown.

Thanks for your vote of confidence. However, unless I am naive or have the good fortune of working with unusual people, over the course of my tenure as a teacher, I have seen and worked with so many people who go above and beyond what is in our job description. But perhaps it is because in my district, for many decades, we have been treated with the respect we deserve–we have an excellent salary schedule (top or #2–it varies from year to year), very good benefits, and our district recognizes us in many other ways. Although we have our issues with top level administration, and we have been 2 days away from striking a few years back, overall, the relationship between administration and union is not rancorous. When people feel respected and valued, we tend to do more for others. When people feel devalued and demeaned, as many Oakland teachers feel, it is hard to rise above that and do more with less. I do believe that so many Oakland teachers are unsung heroes, not mediocre teachers who should never have become teachers. In every profession, you will find mediocrity, and lo and behold, in teaching, often mediocrity rises to the top and they end up in administration still being mediocre–which is probably why Oakland is in the state it is in. But we also have many burnt out teachers who have tried so many different things, received extra training, etc., we have many young new teachers who aren’t getting the proper coaching and mentoring, we have lost many teachers to higher paying districts, and we have a student population that is woefully underserved in many neighborhoods both in our education system and in the world at large. What Oakland teachers have to deal with is far greater than most districts.

Having said all that, I do believe that teachers should be accountable for what they teach and what students learn. But we need to put it in perspective. It is hard to teach under the conditions so many teachers teach with in Oakland. Still, they show up every day with a smile on their faces, love in their hearts, lessons planned, work graded, classrooms organized and bright and cheerful, and the willingness to serve.

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PepeTue, 19 May 2009 05:28:01 +0000http://www.ibabuzz.com/education/?p=4894#comment-20698PS I know a teacher who managed to get one of those habitually tardy students to school on time by calling every morning when she woke up at 5:30 to wake up her student (and her student’s parent). That is the kind of dedication that Del is pushing for and the kind of commitment that teachers should be paid for.
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PepeTue, 19 May 2009 05:24:42 +0000http://www.ibabuzz.com/education/?p=4894#comment-20697Teri, you sound like an amazing teacher, and I would not hesitate putting my own children in your class based on the picture you have painted–I wish there were more like you.

The big picture issue is that there are too many teachers that don’t do what you do–your dedication should be the norm, not the exception. Because it is an exception, at least from my experience, the system fails. School is a place that can develop character and teach accountability, but this needs to be done consistently to overcome the “outside baggage” many kids bring with their backpacks. Fortunately, (from what I’ve noticed of the classrooms I’ve been in) the challenging students you have this year make up a relatively small percentage of school-age chldren.

What would happen if every teacher your students faced were just as dedicated as you and all studeents consistently were held to high expectations? I think your experiences this year would be drastically diferent. Your troubles are a result of system failure–you are a doctor in a system filled with people who should never have made it out of medical school. I would not blame the good doctor, but I would sue the hospitals and medical schools to force system-wide change. In this sense, I do think it is a valid analogy–it’s my belief that if every teacher were as qualified as you, we would not be having this discussion and those challenging situations you describe would be extremely rare.

That said, thanks for everything you are doing. The undying optimism of teachers never ceases to amaze me (yes, even though you claim bitterness, it obviously has not ruined your positive outlook and hope for the future).

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TeriTue, 19 May 2009 04:35:19 +0000http://www.ibabuzz.com/education/?p=4894#comment-20696Now for the doctor analogy–would a doctor be held responsible for the death of a patient if the doctor offered the patient all of the resources at his or her disposal and the patient refused to change his or her diet, exercise, use the medication, opt for the treatment plan or even come to appointments? Of course not. We would blame the patient. We wouldn’t blame the doctor, the hospital or even the health care system. So I don’t think it is a valid analogy.
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TeriTue, 19 May 2009 04:32:24 +0000http://www.ibabuzz.com/education/?p=4894#comment-20695Wow! Del says: And a quick point to nextset: a teacher who fails kids is not a teacher. There is one simple rule: everyone in this class will pass with an A or a B. You will do it in class on assignments and tests and essays and at home in homework. Or I will keep you after school, before school, wake you up on a Saturday, kidnap you on a Sunday until you do. Because I am your teacher and I will teach, and you will learn. And even though your mom and dad gave up and the education blog did too, I am not going to give up on you. It doesn’t take long for kids to make a choice that lets me sleep in on Saturdays.

Let me put in my two-cents here as a teacher. For the previous 5 years I was an amazing teacher. Why? Because I really did have amazing students from a variety of backgrounds and learning abilities from GATE to Resource and ELL. But the key ingredient–very few behavior problems, kids who were willing to go that extra mile to learn, kids who would come in at lunch, stay after school, and work during class time. Was it 100% like this every day? No. Did I have some problems? Yes. Was I able to deal with them? Absolutely. Did every kid make proficient or above on the CST? No, not at all. But did they improve in their scores? Most did. Did they become better readers, writers, and thinkers–all of them did. And what was my largest class? About 30 kids.

Now fast forward to this year with 34 kids, among whom are students who have serious and persistent behavioral issues. (Day 2 of school, I wrote 3 referrals to the office–a first in my long career–for cursing and calling each other douche bags in the middle of me giving instructions for a fun-getting to know you activity.–8th graders). This year, I have written more referrals to the office than all the years prior added together. I have met with (or tried to meet or phone oremail) more parents, offer Wednesday after school Homework Club, stay in at lunch several times a week, check my email regularly for student questions, and keep an up-to-date web page with uploads of assignments. (I even speak and write Spanish, so I can communicate with my population of parents who don’t speak English at all or well enough to talk with a teacher.) Yet, I have given more F’s this year to more students than I ever have. And I’m not talking “58% if you only did a little more work you could easily have a C” kind of F’s. I’m talking students who have done less than 10 or 15% of the work. They can’t even finish class work. I have seven or eight students who come in every morning tardy, and no amount of holding them in at recess or at lunch or talking with parents or assigning them after school detention or Saturday school changes that behavior. They just mosey on in when they feel like it–or not. Sometimes I hear them outside my door, and I have to go outside and round them up interrupting my teaching–something I wish the administrators would do, but they don’t seem to be around much. I have students who haven’t finished a book all year, even the ones we have read as a class (with some reading to be done at home) and have never turned in a single assignment related to the novels. They have never written an essay for me. I have students who know that in a group project they will be letting down their mates, yet they don’t do the work. And many of them told me they just bubble in during testing because “what’s the point? It’s boring.”

And let me add, that I have some incredibly wonderful students in this mix, and I have tried to continue to do the engaging writing and reading, discussing, and project-based activities, but I believe that their educational opportunities have been very compromised this year thanks to a population of students who quite frankly don’t give a shit. Not only is homework optional to these kids, school work is as well. In fact, for many, civility is optional.

So, in a perfect world, interventions of all sorts work. But our world is messy and inconsistent. We have many students who find gang life more enchanting than school life, who believe that they have a future with the NFL or NBA but they can’t write a complete sentence. I have parents who demanded I give their son so many additional opportunities because he needs a 2.0 to play high school football so he can get a scholarship to college. Yet, they didn’t follow through on their end to have their child do even the basic homework assignment. A mother told me this year that she just couldn’t get her son to school on time and that was that. And I had a parent who begged me not to agree to have her son suspended for 5 days for chasing another boy around the class with the white board cleaner spraying him (and others in the process) because he wouldn’t be able to go to the 8th grade picnic. (This is the kind of class–turn my back for a minute, look down at someone else’s paper, lo and behold, chaos breaks out.)

I know I am complaining and bitter this year. But I get frustrated when I read that teachers should give up practically all of our time for our students. I have my own family. I need my own down time. I didn’t go into teaching to be a slave for my students.

But the light at the end of the tunnel? I get hopeful that next year I’ll have a nice group of kids who want to work and learn. That’s the wonder of teaching–we get to say goodbye (and sometimes it’s bittersweet because we love them and know they worked hard and we worked hard and it all paid off, but we’re sad to see them go at the same time), get rested, and get a new chance to be even better teachers. And that’s why I stay. Because deep down, I love the kids, I love teaching and I love seeing that spark in their eyes when they learn something new, or make a connection, or discover something about themselves in their writing.

Teri

]]>By: Oak261http://www.ibabuzz.com/education/2009/05/13/the-plan-just-fire-the-teachers-and-start-over/comment-page-1/#comment-20694
Oak261Sun, 17 May 2009 06:27:10 +0000http://www.ibabuzz.com/education/?p=4894#comment-20694There’s an interesting article about the Green Dot charter movement in LA in last week’s New Yorker:
You can view the abstract at:http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/11/090511fa_fact_mcgray
To see the whole article, you need to be a subscriber. The protagonist, Steve Barr, got the attention of Arne Duncan.

From the abstract, the article is “about Steve Barr’s plan to remake failing schools. Two years ago, Steve Barr asked the Los Angeles Unified School District (L.A.U.S.D.) to give his charter-school management group, Green Dot Public Schools, control of Alain Leroy Locke High School, near Watts, California, and let him help the district turn it around. When the district refused, Green Dot became the first charter group in the country to seize a high school, in a hostile takeover. Locke reopened in September, four months after a riot had paralyzed it, as a half-dozen Green Dot schools. “It’s night and day,” said Ramon Cortines, L.A.U.S.D.’s new superintendent. In the past decade, Barr has opened seventeen charter high schools—small, locally managed institutions that aim for a high degree of teacher autonomy and parent involvement—in some of the poorest neighborhoods in L.A….”